Yorick was the deceased court jester whose skull is exhumed by the gravedigger in Act 5, Scene 1, of Shakespeare's Hamlet. Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix (26 April 1798 &ndash 13 August 1863 was a French Romantic artist regarded from the outset of his career as the leader of A jester, joker, jokester, fool, wit-cracker, prankster, or buffoon is a member of a profession that came into popularity For other uses of "gravedigger" or "Grave Digger" see Gravedigger (disambiguation. William Shakespeare ( baptised Hamlet is a Tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601 The sight of Yorick's skull evokes a monologue from Prince Hamlet on the vile effects of death:
- Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio; a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy; he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rises at it. Prince Hamlet is the protagonist in Shakespeare 's tragedy Hamlet. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now? (Hamlet, V. i)
The opening words are very commonly misquoted as "Alas! poor Yorick. I knew him well. "
It has often been suggested that Shakespeare intended his audience to connect Yorick with the Elizabethan comedian Richard Tarlton, a star performer of the pre-Shakespearian stage, who had been dead for around the same time as Yorick in the play. Romance and reality The Victorian era and the early twentieth century idealised the Elizabethan era Richard Tarlton (1530 &ndash September 3, 1588) an English actor was the most famous clown of his era [1]
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Vanitas imagery
The contrast between Yorick as "a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy" and his grim remains is a variation on the theme of earthly vanity (cf Vanitas): death being unavoidable, the things of this life are inconsequential. In the arts vanitas is a type of symbolic Still life Painting commonly executed by Northern European painters in Flanders and the
This theme of Memento mori ('Remember you shall die') is common in 16th and 17th century painting, appearing in art throughout Europe. Memento mori is a Latin phrase that may be translated as "Remember that you are mortal" "Remember you will die" "Remember that you must Images of Mary Magdalene regularly showed her contemplating a skull. It is is also a very common motif in 15th and 16th century British portraiture.
A more direct comparison is with pictures of playful children or young men, who are often depicted looking at a skull as a sign of the transience of life. Frans Hals (c 1580– August 26, 1666) was a Dutch Golden Age painter especially famous for portraiture. It was also a familiar motif in emblem books and tombs. Emblem books are a particular style of illustrated Book developed in Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries, normally containing about one hundred combinations
Hamlet meditating upon the skull of Yorick has become the most lasting embodiment of this idea, and has been depicted by later artists as a continuation of the Vanitas tradition.
Name
The name Yorick has most often been interpreted as an attempt to render a Scandinavian forename: usually either "Erick" or "Jörg", the Danish form of the name George. [2]. The name "Rorik" has also been suggested, since it appears in Saxo Grammaticus, one of Shakespeare's source texts, as the name of the queen's father. "Saxo" redirects here For the car see Citroën Saxo and for the bank see Saxo Bank Saxo Grammaticus (c There has been no agreement about which name is most likely. [3]
An alternative suggestion is that it may be derived from the Viking city of York (Jórvík), a connection that was first made in 1866. York ( is an historic Walled city sited at the confluence of the rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. [4] More recently Gerald Kilroy has suggested that it is an anagram of the Greek word 'Kurios', which he takes to be a reference to the Catholic martyr Edmund Campion. Saint Edmund Campion SJ ( January 24 1540 &ndash December 1 1581) was an English Jesuit priest [5]
The name was used by Laurence Sterne in his comic novels Tristram Shandy and A Sentimental Journey as the surname of the one of the characters, a parson who is a humorous portrait of the author. Laurence Sterne ( November 24, 1713 &ndash March 18, 1768) was an Irish -born English Novelist and an Anglican The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy Gentleman (or more briefly Tristram Shandy) is a novel by Laurence Sterne. A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy is a novel by the Irish-born English author Laurence Sterne, written and first published in 1768, as Parson Yorick is supposed to be descended from Shakespeare's Yorick.
Portrayals
Yorick normally only appears as a skull, but there have been scattered portrayals of him as a living man, such as Philip Hermogenes Calderon's painting The Young Lord Hamlet (1868), which depicts him carrying the child Hamlet on his back, as if being ridden like a horse by the prince. Philip Hermogenes Calderon ( May 3, 1833 – April 30, 1898) was a British painter of French birth (mother and Spanish (father ancestry who He was portrayed by the comedian Ken Dodd in a flashback during the gravedigging scene in Kenneth Branagh's 1996 film Hamlet. Kenneth Arthur Dodd OBE (born November 8, 1927) is a veteran English Comedian and Singer Songwriter, famous Kenneth Charles Branagh (born 10 December 1960) is an Emmy Award -winning Academy Award -nominated Northern Irish Actor Hamlet is a 1996 film version of William Shakespeare 's classic play of the same name, adapted and directed by Kenneth Branagh
References
- ^ Muriel Bradbrook, Shakespeare the Craftsman, London, 1969, p. 135.
- ^ Digest of theories of the name at Hamlet Works
- ^ Jenkins, Harold, (ed), Hamlet, Arden edition, Methuen, 1982, p. 386
- ^ Notes and Queries, 1866
- ^ Requiem for a Prince: Rites of Memory in Hamlet, in Theatre And Religion: Lancastrian Shakespeare edited by Richard Dutton, Alison Findlay, Richard Wilson, Manchester University Press, 2004, p. 152
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